Janet - McCalla, Alabama (03/27/14)
I was looking for a device to use while backpacking. This device fit my needs perfectly. On a previous hike on the AT, I did not want to leave my tent through the night and go in the woods to tinkle. On my upcoming AT hike I did not want to go through that ordeal again. I started searching the internet and came across several options. I saw a problem with the other products with having to still tinkle outside the tent and having to sanitize the device. Your product alleviates that and it is smaller and less bulky (space is at a premium when your backpacking). Needless to say, I'll be carrying this on my 3 week hike on the Appalachian Trail! PS: You should try to get outdoor gear stores to carry your product. I can't be the only one that sees a need for it.
Janet - McCalla, Alabama (03/27/14)
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This product is amazing! I purchased it for a recent trip to the Middle East and used it successfully. It was so easy to use and a nice sanitary option in not so nice public restrooms and squat toilets. One of the women on my trip actually used it on our tour bus during an emergency tinkle event and was so thankful that I brought along "GottaTinkle"!
Catrina - Succasunna, New Jersey (03/26/14) By: SAMANTHA
Published by Multiple Mayhem Mamma APRIL 16, 2013 “I have to go pee!” No sooner do those dreaded words leave the lips of your child and you’ve already broken out into a cold sweat. The thought of entering a public bathroom with your kid is more than you can bear. A relative cesspool of germs – literally – thoughts of the Bubonic Plague and worse swirl around your mind. “Are you sure?” you ask, hoping for a reprieve. “Can you wait until we get home?!” Of course the answer is a big fat “NO!” from your child who is now hopping up and down, trying to hold off an imminent deluge, much to your protestations. Have no fear the next time this scenario presents itself. There are, thankfully, some very simple tips and strategies that parents can use in order to avoid picking up too many of those dreaded germs, diseases and other choice microorganisms that seem to fester in public bathrooms ... 1) Dont touch anything – Make sure to use tissue to open doors before and after leaving the bathroom. Don’t touch the bathroom locks, doors, taps etc. with your bare hands. Flush the toilet with you’re foot. I’m serious. 2) Bring hand sanitizer with you – Apply after washing hands. you may accidentally touch something and no amount of soap and water will make you feel clean. The hand sanitizer is an extra reassurance that you will get our of that place without the a serious illness or disease. 3) Teach your kids not to touch everything and to always wash their hands after every trip to the toilet. Explain to them how diseases are spread in simple terms. Once they get it, they won’t want to touch anything in a public washroom either. Trust me on this. 4) Hover – A must if you’re raising a little girl ... Failing this or weak thigh muscles, put toilet paper on the seats. By all means, try to avoid contact with the toilet seat whenever possible. I know that experts say that you can’t catch diseases from toilet seats but why take a chance? 5) Make a deposit before you leave the house – Urge your child to go to the bathroom at home. To avoid the nightmare that is often a visit to a public bathroom with your kids, let the little ones get in the habit of going to the toilet before going out to decrease the likelihood of them having to use public facilities ... Read full article at Multiple Mayhem Mamma By Steve K
Published by Road Trip Survival Enjoying the Entire Trip NOVEMBER 19, 2013 If there’s one thing you simply can’t avoid on a road trip it’s public bathrooms. Nobody enjoys playing gas station bathroom roulette ... For kids, public bathrooms are even more dicey. After screaming they have to go for the last 15 miles, you hastily pull into the rest stop only to find your child is too afraid of public bathrooms to actually go. Young children in particular may balk in an unfamiliar restroom ... Here are five things I have learned trying to get the kids to “just go already ..." 1. Understand the Potty Fear. The important thing to realize when a kid is afraid of public toilets, it’s a genuine fear. Think about public bathrooms for just a minute. They’re noisy, sometimes not exactly spotless and full of strangers coming and going. 2. Potty Engineering. My son’s particular phobia is loud auto-flushing toilets ... The first thing I do when I take him to the bathroom is check the flushing mechanism. If it’s a manual handle, I show him that we control when it flushes ...Most automatic flushers have a manual activation switch, so we’ll do a test flush to see how loud the toilet is. If that doesn’t work, I have a high-tech solution: Take a pack of Post-it notes with you and cover the motion detector on the auto flush ... 3. BYO cleaning. Dirty public bathrooms is more of a hangup of my daughter for obvious reasons. Let’s face it, every now and again you’re going to run into a public bathroom that is a little less than tidy ... 4. Companion Restrooms. Many rest areas have “family” or companion restrooms. These are private restrooms with a locking door ... 5. Be Prepared for Defeat. Let’s face it, even with all the family restrooms in the world, accidents will happen. Whether you have the most stubborn of balkers or just a kid who’s really bad at estimating their bodies, there’s always a chance this whole thing ends badly ... Read full article at Road Trip Survival Enjoying the Entire Trip By: Joshua Levine
Published by askmen.com You don't have to be a germophobe to fear the restrooms at the baseball stadium, local McDonald's or shopping center. The common cold, E. coli and hepatitis A all flourish in public toilets and sinks just waiting to pounce and infect. Despite many scientific studies stating that these and many other bacteria are ever-present in washrooms, is there any real chance of catching something serious from a restroom ... What can you catch? The facts can appear grim. From a common cold to stomach flu viruses, bad things lurk on sink surfaces, hand dryers and toilet seats. Without proper care, you're at risk of being bedridden for weeks with a multitude of diseases like the nasty-sounding streptococcus (a form of strep throat and meningitis), E.coli, hepatitis A, and staphylococcus (the virus behind food poisoning and a form of pneumonia) ... When in the bathroom stall, you can use your foot to flush if you're sick or think your immune system is weakened. The toilet surface is just another place crawling with sickly potential. When you do flush, make sure you exit the stall immediately after, or else the airborne particles that fly around after you press the lever can get into your lungs and give you a cough or cold ... Use toilet seat covers where available if you're going to sit or generous strips of toilet paper to cover the seat, avoiding contact of bacteria with your bottom ... Read full article at askmen.com By Amy Solomon
Published everydayHEALTH Last Updated: 10/21/2011 Using public bathrooms gives many of us the heebie-jeebies. But the biggest danger doesn't come from sitting on the seat. There's no denying that public bathrooms can be germ-ridden places. According to a study presented at the Infectious Diseases Society of America annual meeting, scientists who studied samples taken from a variety of public restrooms found that the sheer number of illness-causing bacteria present was too big to measure in many cases. So it's only natural to worry about what may be lurking on even the cleanest-looking toilet seats ... But experts say our fear of sitting on the average toilet seat (one that isn't visibly soiled) is overblown. There's no question that germs can inhabit the seat, says Philip Tierno, MD, director of clinical microbiology and diagnostic immunology at New York University Medical Center and Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City. "The bulk of the organisms found are basically fecal-borne bacteria." These nasties can include E. coli (which can cause bloody diarrhea or abdominal cramps), streptococcus (the bug behind strep throat), or S. aureus (linked to serious skin problems or pneumonia). But just because they’re on the seat doesn't mean they’ll make you sick. That’s because your skin acts as a very effective barrier to keep germs out (unless you have an open wound or lesion on your behind) ... Are you safer if you use those paper seat protectors? Dr. Tierno isn't a fan: "They're too thin, they rip and fall apart." If you want to use them, he says, you can double-fold them, or place double-folded toilet paper on the seat ... But germs aren't only found on the seat itself. "Where you find the organisms in larger quantities would be the underside of the toilet seat, because that is not cleaned as often [as the top]. As you flush, you bring up the contents in the bowl," says Tierno. "It's not just your germs, it's germs from other people." Some toilets can aerosolize the contents for quite a distance after being flushed, he says: "five feet or so, with lower-volume flushes." Older toilets can spray as far as 20 feet! ... And those far-reaching flushes may be responsible for another germ-ridden area of a typical public restroom: the floor. An ABC News investigation of the germiest spots in public bathrooms found that the floor has about 2 million bacteria per square inch! If you carry a purse or shoulder bag, avoid putting it down on the floor while you're in the bathroom — hang it on the back of the door if possible ... Read full article published by everydayHEALTH by Kristen J. Gough
Published by Baby Zone Courtesy of Disney If you have a recently potty trained child, you can probably relate to the following scenario: You have your three-year-old use the potty twice before you leave the house. You get to the grocery store. Your cart is loaded. Suddenly your daughter looks at you, grabbing at her pants uncomfortably before announcing (loudly and in the canned food section where it echoes), “I’ve got to pee, Mommy. Now.” You look around for the nearest bathroom—even track down a store clerk to find it. You abandon your overflowing cart, race your child into the bathroom, and fling open the stall, only to have her say, “I don’t like that potty, Mommy.” I’ve been there with each of my three children. You think that your potty training days are over when you finally get kids to use the toilet at home, only to discover that you have to retrain them to use unfamiliar potties. But with a little preparation and some know-how, you can help your child overcome his or her fears with these public potty success tips. “I don’t make it a question,” says Dr. Ari Brown, MD, a pediatrician and author of Toddler 411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for Your Toddler. She says ...insist that they use the bathroom before they [leave] the house ... Whenever I go into a store ... I look around to make sure that I know where the bathrooms are located ... Then, if you do need to abandon your cart for a quick potty run, you know where to go. This helps alleviate your own stress as well as your child’s, who is still trying to figure out when he really does have to “go.” Preparing your child for what he’ll find in public stalls can ease his bathroom anxiety. Many features on commercial toilets that seem great for adults—like automatic flushing—can scare kids ... Ah, what to do when you’re at the park or on the road and your child needs to relieve herself? Some parents bring the training potty from home with them when they travel, which gives kids a familiar place to go. You can also consider buying a plastic folding seat cover to bring with you when you have to make dashes into dirty gas station bathrooms. If the seat cover is used every time you travel, its familiar sight can make new potties a bit more comfortable ... To make enclosed public toilet trips a little more pleasant, make sure that your travel bag is stocked with tissues, perfumed lotion, and hand sanitizer ... Read full article published by Baby Zone Courtesy of Disney Published by wikiHow
Edited by Arrrbee, Nicole Willson, Funnyhunny, Brett and 26 others Public restrooms can transmit disease and skin infections. Despite improved regulations about sanitizing public toilets, there are still times during which it may be necessary to sanitize a public toilet. If you dislike the idea of using a public toilet seat or if the seat is visibly wet or dirty, you can follow the steps below to sanitize the seat carefully before use ... Sanitize the Toilet Seat with Covers
By Cathy Hackl on May 23, 2013
I remember the days when I hated changing diapers. I couldn’t wait for my daughter to be potty trained so I would only have one baby in diapers. Now I look back on it and realize that diapers weren’t that bad after all, because now we have to brave the public toilets whenever we go out around the city. I need to clarify that I’m not necessarily a germaphobe, but I find that a lot of public toilets in Madrid are quite dirty and not very child friendly. That’s why I thought this might be a useful post for all those mommies trying to brave the public toilet conundrum. Here are 9 tips for braving the public restrooms in Madrid with a little one:
Read full article published by Vaya Madrid! By: Dani Ryan
Posted on http://www.cloudywithachanceofwine.com May 2003 I’ve been dreaming a lot about summer lately, which made me remember all of the trips we did when I was a kid ... ... there was that road trip we took back in 1985 ... Now one thing you need to know about Asia in the 1980s is that very few public establishments housed western toilets. In fact, I think we only ever found them at posh hotels and MacDonald’s, but even then, the toilet seats were always covered in footprints from some jerk trying to squat on them. And since my disabled sister is physically unable to use a squat toilet, and my mother and I were afraid of falling in, the words, “I need to pee” were not taken lightly when we were out of the house. But with 9 hours of driving ahead of us, and 2 very full bladders, we needed to stop ... We were so desperate to pee by this point that none of us really paid attention as we climbed out of the car, but boy were we ever in for the shock of our lives when we opened the door to that restroom. Do you remember the scene in Slumdog Millionaire, where the kid goes into the outhouse and jumps through the make-shift toilet and into a pile of poop? Well, it wasn’t quite that bad, but that visual will help set the scene. What was once a beautiful, white hotel bathroom was now dingy, dark, and grey. Only a single light bulb lit the place, but we could still see questionable things splattered all over every surface ... And the water coming out of the faucet was light brown. But there was 1 western toilet, and, as we knew it could be our only option for hours, we knew we had to make it work. I remember watching my poor mother frantically look around for something, ANYTHING, she could use to clean the toilet before her precious girls sat down to pee on it. But she was out of luck, and was forced to give us a premature lesson on how to hover over a public toilet seat. Which only goes so far when one of your children is disabled, and the other is only 7-years-old. But we did our best, and when the horrible ordeal was over ... we headed back to the car while my mother begged us not to put our hands near our mouths. Once we were safely buckled back into our seats, my Dad took one look at us, turned the car around, and drove us home, where my mother promptly bathed us, our clothes, and the inside of our car in bleach. That was the last road trip we ever took as a family ... Read full article published by www.cloudywithachanceofwine. Posted by: Rod Moser, PA, PhD
From WebMD.com, Thursday, June 15, 2006 ... Someone posted on the WebMD General Health Board recently, horrified that her four-year old sat on a public restroom toilet seat without a protective cover or a lining of toilet paper. The mother was worried about all of the diseases her child may now be incubating. Is this four-year old likely to get a Rotavirus infection (a common cause of diarrhea)? How about Herpes? I have seen some disgusting public restrooms in my life, so I can understand this mother’s concern; however, exposure to an infectious organism does not necessarily mean a person will develop a disease. The human body is well-adapted to fighting off these ongoing exposures. Germs do not typically enter intact buttocks skin from a toilet seat, but no one wants to sit on them anyway. Using seat covers and paper is fine, but it really doesn’t protect you from microorganisms. Children have a bad habit of holding on to the toilet seat, with their little fingers clutching underneath the rim. Granted, they don’t want to fall in, but those little fingertips will pick up under-seat germs like Velcro. Germs do enter the body through the nose, eyes, and mouth, usually transmitted from our own, contaminated hands and fingers. If you watch a child wash their hands, you will see that they tend to miss the fingertips — perhaps the most contaminated part of the hands. And, those dirty fingertips will most likely be probing a nose or rubbing an eye within a few minutes. I have to admit that I avoid public restrooms; however, the call of nature is not always convenient. Men do have a distinct advantage of being able to stand at a urinal — a very hygienic method to urinate ... I diagnose several urinary tract infections per week in my pediatric clinic. As part of the medical history, I always inquire about the restrooms at the schools. Many school toilets are worse than some backwoods gas stations. Some do not have locks that work or even doors for privacy. When restrooms are dirty, or not private, children won’t use them. When children (usually little girls) hold their urine, they are more likely to get urinary tract infections ... Custodians usually clean restrooms at the end of the day, but it is rare that the toilets and other fixtures are disinfected. Rotavirus infections can cause profound diarrhea and vomiting. This organism is easily spread in public restrooms and schools. As gross as this statement sounds, diarrhea tends to splash, spreading highly contaminated feces on surfaces and other fixtures. And, the dominant hand that wipes is the hand that contaminates door handles and faucets; and the hand that shakes your hand during greetings ... When Nature calls, we must answer. Public restrooms are a very necessary convenience, but they are not without inherent risks ... Read full article published by WebMD.com Bathroom Paranoia
WebMD Feature Archive© 2002 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved. Perhaps Ally McBeal can ease her off-the-charts stress levels by escaping to the office restroom. But for most of us, public toilets are actually a bit scary ... If you squirm at the thought of creepy germs lurking on toilet seats and faucet handles, you probably spend as little time as possible in the restrooms of your office building, not to mention those in restaurants, hotels and (God forbid!) gas stations. And during those nerve-wracking moments when you dare to venture into the confines of the bathroom, you may find yourself pushing open the stall door with your elbows, crouching precariously above the toilet seat rather than letting your skin touch it, and flushing with your shoe ... But while there's plenty of bathroom paranoia to go around, anxiety might be a little overdone. Yes, there can be plenty of bugs lying in wait in public restrooms, including both familiar and unfamiliar suspects like streptococcus, staphylococcus, E. coli and shigella bacteria, hepatitis A virus, the common cold virus, and various sexually transmitted organisms. But if your immune system is healthy, and if you adopt simple hygienic measures like handwashing, you should be able to deliver a knockout punch to most of what you encounter ... Germs in feces can be propelled into the air when the toilet is flushed. For that reason, Philip Tierno, MD, director of clinical microbiology and diagnostic immunology at New York University Medical Center and Mt. Sinai Medical Center, advises leaving the stall immediately after flushing to keep the microscopic, airborne mist from choosing you as a landing site ... Other hot zones in public bathrooms include sinks, faucet handles, and towel dispensers. Picture someone emerging from a bathroom stall, and turning on the faucet with dirty hands, and you'll know why faucet handles are a potentially troublesome surface. Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson found that sinks are the greatest reservoir of germ colonies in restrooms, thanks in part to accumulations of water that become breeding grounds for tiny organisms ... Read full article published by WebMD.com When microbiologist Charles Gerba, Ph.D., tested for microbes in the bathrooms of commercial jets, he found surfaces from faucets to doorknobs to be contaminated with E. coli ...
Read full article at Prevention.com Back in the early days with Crappy Boy, I couldn't wait for him to no longer use diapers. To be diaper free! Diaper free sucks. Don't fall for that potty training propaganda ... Once he was out of diapers I realized just how much harder it was. Public bathrooms are not fun places to take grabby kids who like to explore everything. And the toilets aren't exactly the right size for a person who is roughly three feet tall... I have to go to the bathroom to wash my hands and [my friend's daughter] has to pee. So I offer to take her. She wishes me "good luck" and hums a smug little happy song as we walk away ... When we get into the bathroom ... it occurs to me that her little girl can't masterfully squat above the toilet seat without touching it like I can ... The toilet seat cover dispenser is empty ... [so] I get to work making a toilet paper patchwork quilt on the seat ... I have to work very fast because she is doing the pee dance already. I help pull down her underwear to her ankles and start to plop her on the toilet. And then realize that she will just fall straight in if I let go ... Why is her butt so tiny? This is no good. Oh, I see the problem! Her underwear can't be on both ankles because she needs to spread her legs to anchor herself and balance. So I slip it over one shoe and leave it around the other ankle. I continue to hold her steady ... And we have pee! I did it! ... As I'm patting myself on the back, I notice her foot. The one with the underwear clinging to it. It is swinging. With two little shakes, the underwear slips over her shoe ... And it falls onto the sticky, urine lacquered floor ... The public toilet is the enemy ... Read full article at Huffington Post
The Health Site
Editorial Team March 7, 2014 Many occasions last week tugged at my conscience, primarily because of a series of events. Two ladies were planning their shopping itinerary, seated in a McDonald’s in south Delhi, till their drifting conversation hit me that the whole expedition was centered on one thing – clean toilets. The next day I overheard another lady refusing to sip tea or coffee before heading out. Politely, she stated, no fluids, on the days she steps out, lest she should have to use a restroom outside. Later that evening, I ventured out for a walk ... The sight of a young woman walker, barely fifty yards ahead of me, stepping off the track to relieve herself embarrassed and shook my standing as a resident ... This huge park acquired a spanking new toilet block in 2010 as a part of the Commonwealth Games largesse. When I used it just months later, I nearly fainted, even before reaching it. I know why the jogger chose the shrubs over the never-cleaned toilet block... The absence of enough functional restrooms in public places for women is not only a matter of dignity and healthcare, but also of safety...The June 19, 2012 issue of Time magazine pointed to the vast health issues that women contend with in absence of public restrooms. “To avoid the need to urinate, they often withhold hydration, a practice resulting in high rates of urinary-tract infections, heat strokes and other health problems” ... With inputs from IANS/ By Sanjiv Kataria Read full article at Women’s Day 2014: When will Indian women have public toilets that aren’t dirty and unhygienic By Eric Pfeiffer
September 11, 2013 11:58 PM Everyone should wash their hands after using the restroom, right? However, a team of scientists says the hygienic practice may not be as clean as thought – that’s because the hand soap in 25 percent of public restrooms may could be dirty – even more contaminated than toilet water. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that microbiologists at GOJO Industries say that contaminated soap oftentimes contains so much fecal matter that it leaves your hands dirtier than before you washed them. GOJO says there could be so much bacteria in the soap that coming in contact with it could lead to vomiting, fever, diarrhea or pink eye. "It was disgusting," University of Arizona professor Charles P. Gerba said of the GOJO study, which was published in the Journal of Environmental Health. "We didn't find any new life forms, but we found plenty of coliform bacteria. I never dreamed there could be so many bacteria in soap."... Their study ... said the bacteria is formed from airborne contaminents that come in contact with the soap when containers are refilled ... Based on the results from the study GOJO microbiology scientist Dave Shumaker said an individual could leave a restroom with 25 times more bacteria on their hands than before they first walked in. Even more disturbing, the study found that attempting to clean the soap dispensers, even when using bleach, made little to no difference over time. "Within two weeks, the soap inside the dispenser was just as contaminated as before the cleaning," Shumaker said. "You could end up going into a public restroom and coming out dirtier than you were before," he told the Plain Dealer. Read full article at Restroom soap may be dirtier than toilet water |
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